‘Jack Reacher’ Japanese Trailer & Featurette

With its release just a couple weeks away, anticipation continues to build for Christopher McQuarrie’s Jack Reacher,an action-packed adaptation of Lee Child’s novel One Shot, the ninth book in a series of 17 featuring the titular character.

Past trailers have given us a sense of the film’s style as well as some background info on Reacher, but a new trailer provides some more details on the actual story and gives us a glimpse at more of the high-octane action.

Although the trailer (above) is in Japanese and is similar to the trailer released a month ago, it still gives a new look at some of the action set-pieces that are sure to bring Childs’ vision to life on the big screen. Perhaps more importantly, the trailer also gives more of a proper introduction to the film’s story arc as well as some of the villains and the suspect Reacher believes has been framed.

As it turns out, you don’t need to translate the trailer’s voiceover to understand the premise and the story that we’re getting a glimpse of. Here we learn more about Reacher’s motivations and his search for the truth as he begins to investigate a series of sniper shootings. We see that the only way for him to find justice is to work outside of the law, disregarding civil authority. The trailer reveals some more details about the first act of the film without giving away how Reacher does – or does not – accomplish his mission.

Meanwhile, a recently released featurette (courtesy of Yahoo Movies) includes an interview with Childs, who offers his thoughts on Tom Cruise’s portrayal of Reacher and the character in general. The minute-and-a-half-long clip will surely interest fans of the books and will give moviegoers a better sense of who Reacher is as a self-made anti-hero.

Check it out below:

The featurette also provides non-Childs readers with an understanding of the massive scope of the Reacher phenomenon. The 17 books have sold over 60 million copies worldwide and Paramount is obviously hoping that the fan base will turn out for what they hope to be a franchise of Reacher films. The featurette compares Reacher to James Bond and Jason Bourne, characters already ingrained in the American film zeitgeist, thanks to very successful film franchises.

Although the the film has been cut for release in the UK to eliminate some of the more violent scenes, it appears to be an intense action film with an intriguing (albeit not particularly original), character-driven story. If Reacher is even moderately successful, I think we can expect plenty of additional adaptations of Childs’ novels to hit the big screen.

Be sure to look for Jack Reacher when it hits theaters on December 21st, 2012.